Raptor (20 page)

“Ne, I am the lissome lad Hyacinthus, come to seduce and debauch you!” Wyrd bellowed, so loudly that various other shutters in houses roundabout also opened a crack. “Unbar this door or, by Iésus, I will kick it in!”

“I cannot open it, friend Wyrd,” said the eye. “I am forbidden to open to any stranger.”

“What? Forbidden? By the boils of Job, both you and I have contracted and survived every kind of pox and plague there is! We hazard no contamination of one another, or of anybody else. And I am no stranger! I say again, if you do not open—”

“If ever once in your life, old ferta, you would shut your yammering mouth, your ears might open. This door is barred by order of the legatus Calidius. So is every other door in Basilea. We have not been visited by any plague, but by the Huns.”

“Iésus! Does Calidius barricade the barn after the horses are stolen, niu?”

“You speak truer than you may think. This time it was a unique mare and foal that got stolen.”

“Perdition, Pluto and Pandemonium!” Wyrd raged. “Let me in and tell me about it!”

“I am forbidden even to speak of what has occurred here. So is every other citizen. All strangers and visitors are to report to the garrison, Wyrd. That is the only door that may be opened to you.”

“Dylas, you wretch, what
is
going on? There are not enough Huns in this part of the world to mount an attack on a Roman garrison.”

“I can tell you no more, old friend. Go to the garrison.”

So we went on, through the streets that led uphill between the cabanae, Wyrd muttering foul words in his beard the whole way, and I staying prudently silent. Approaching the fort atop the terrace, we walked the zigzag path leading through the thorn thickets, bridging the ditches and trapfalls—a path easy enough for a pedestrian to negotiate, but capable of stopping any headlong charge of either foot or horse soldiers. Finally Wyrd and I stood at the base of the high wall. As I have said, Basilea’s was one of the lesser garrisons, but it looked grand enough to me then. Just this one side of it was some four hundred paces from corner to corner. The wall, though doubtless of stone or brick, was entirely faced on the outside with a heavy layer of peat turfs, to soften the battering of any ram. Above the great timber gate hung a board with words incised and the letters picked out with paint: in gold the name of the long-ago emperor who had established the fort, VALENTINIAN, and in red the name of the legion to which the garrison troops belonged, LEGIO XI CLAUDIA.

That massive gate was tight shut, like every other door in town, and from one of the towers on either side of it a voice shouted down, challenging us first in Latin, then in the Old Language:

“Quis accedit? Huarjis anaquimith?”

Rather to my surprise, Wyrd replied in both of those tongues:

“Est caecus, quisquis? Ist jus blinda, niu? Who do you think approaches, Paccius? You presumptuous puppy, I am clearly your mother the bitch! You know my voice, Signifer, as well as I know yours.”

I heard the sentry chuckle, but then he called again, “I know you, yes, old man. But some of the threescore archers on these battlements may not, and their arrows are already aimed at you. Announce yourself.”

Wyrd furiously stamped his foot and roared, “By the twenty-four testicles of the twelve apostles! I am called Wyrd the Forest-Stalker!”

“And your companion?”

“Only another puppy, you impudent puppy. My apprentice forester, called Thorn the Worthless.”

“And
his
companion?”

“What?” said Wyrd, nonplussed. He looked around at me. “Akh, the bird. Surely, Paccius, a Roman legionary recognizes an
eagle.
Shall I now announce my separate toes, which are itching to kick your skeit-smeared rump?”

“Wait there.”

Although Wyrd kept on shouting, getting ever more obscene and blasphemous, there ensued only silence from above. I heartily wished that he would be quiet, too, considering that we were the potential target of more arrows than had ever been aimed at St. Sebastian.

But we did not have long to wait. There came from within the gate the thuds, grindings and creaks of timber balks being withdrawn. Then the heavy gate opened, with ponderous slowness, and only far enough to admit us. We were met by the sentry Paccius, who was, like the other legionaries flanking the entrance, in full battle dress. It was the first time I had ever seen soldiers, not to mention armor.

Each man wore a round iron helmet that flared out behind into a neck guard, and had hinged cheek guards on either side, and the whole of which was ornately wrought and chased. His body armor was of innumerable metal scales, densely overlapped and fastened to a leather undercorselet, and around his neck each man wore a scarf to prevent the stiff garment from chafing his skin. Around his waist, each wore a wide belt, studded with decorative metal bosses. From the left side of the belt depended a sheathed, leaf-bladed dagger, and from the right a much ornamented scabbard; the men all had their short-swords ready in their hands. From the front of the belt hung a sort of apron of iron plates on leather thongs, so they would swing between a man’s legs as easily as the skirt of his woolen tunic but in a fight would protect his belly and private parts. All the men—especially the one named Paccius, who seemed to be of some rank higher than the others—looked so strong, tanned, capable, brave and warlike that I momentarily wished that I were a male, and a man grown, so that I could enlist as a legionary, too.

“Salve, Uiridus, ambulator silvae,” Paccius said pleasantly, raising his clenched right fist in the Roman salute.

“Salve, Signifer,” Wyrd grunted, his arms too laden to return the salute. “It took you long enough.”

“I had to make known your arrival to the legatus praesidio. He not only grants you entrance, old Wyrd, he expresses great gladness that you are here, and bids you attend upon him on the instant.”

“Vái! The perfumed Calidius would not want to receive me in my present condition. You must have been able to smell me, Paccius, even before you condescended to open the gate. I am going to the baths. Come, urchin.”

“Siste!” snapped Paccius, before Wyrd and I had gone three paces. “When the legatus says come, he means come now.”

Wyrd glared at him. “You are a soldier under the command of every other soldier above the rank of signifer. I am a free citizen.”

“The jus belli has been imposed. And under martial law, as you well know, citizens also must take orders. But if necessary, you stubborn old man, Calidius would
beg
that you attend. When you speak with him, you will see that I do not exaggerate.”

“Akh, very well,” Wyrd sighed impatiently. “First, at least, show us to a barrack where we can dispose of our burdens.”

“Venite,” said Paccius, and led the way. “Almost all of our spare facilities are crowded with civilians. Calidius ordered in here everyone from the outlying countryside, and also every newcomer to Basilea. Everyone who could not be billeted in the cabanae nearest the garrison’s protection. We are even playing host to a traveling Syrian slave dealer and his whole shackled train of charismatics. But I will find quarters for you two—or throw out the Syrian, if I have to.”

“What is all this?” asked Wyrd. “Down in the town, the caupo Dylas—you know him, Paccius—spoke of Huns, but I thought the man deranged. You cannot be expecting an assault by the Huns.”

“Not an assault, a visit from time to time,” the signifer said uncomfortably. “And by only one Hun each time. The legatus has sequestered everybody so that none but himself has communication with that visitor, and so that no one does him harm as he comes and goes, or tries to trail him to his lair.”

Wyrd stared unbelievingly. “Has
every
last man in Basilea gone demented? You have been allowing a filthy Hun simply to stroll in here unscathed? And letting him walk
out
again? Without his louse-ridden head under his arm?”

“Please,” said Paccius, in a voice almost of shame. “Let the legatus explain it to you. Here is your billet.”

The long wooden barrack had a roofed portico running its full length, and several soldiers, presumably off duty, were lounging there to take the air. The building’s long wall had a dozen doors in it, and beside each door, sunken into a hole in the portico floor, was a lidded bin for trash. Paccius led us through one of the doors, and I found myself in the choicest sleeping quarters I had yet been offered in my life. The room was only of raw wood, and had not a trace of ornament. But it contained eight pallets and they were not on
the floor.
They were raised above it—above the reach of all but extremely energetic vermin—on frames that stood on little legs. At the foot of each bed was a chest for the occupant’s belongings, and it could be
locked
against pilfering. Opposite the beds was an alcove with a stand on which was soap and a ewer of water, and in its floor was an opening to be used for a rere-dorter, and those facilities were not for everyone in the building but
only
for this room’s occupants.

When we three entered, all the beds were already taken. On one sat a black-bearded, brown-skinned, hook-nosed man in heavy woolen traveling robes. On the others sat smaller persons—young boys, in fact, aged about five to twelve years—each of them wearing iron rings on both ankles, with a chain between, and all of them raggedly dressed and morose of aspect.

“Foedissimus Syrus, apage te!” Paccius snarled at the man. “Abi, you Syrian swine! Take these brats and cram them in the next room with your others. And you go with them. We have guests who deserve a room to themselves, not to be shared with a greasy slaver and his capon charismatics.”

The Syrian, whose name I later learned was Bar Nar Natquin, somehow managed to smile ingratiatingly and to sneer at the same time, and he wrung his hands, and said, in heavily Greek-tinged Latin, “I hasten to obey, Centurio. May I have the centurio’s permission to take my young wards to the baths before I put them to bed, please, Centurio?”

“You know I am not a centurio, you lickspittle toad. You may drop your toad spawn down the latrina for all I care. Apage te!”

The boys all hid smiles of glee at hearing their master reviled, even though the revilement included them as well. And when they smiled, I could see that they were all exceptionally pretty boys. As the Syrian herded them out the door, Paccius said:

“That unctuous panderer Natquin keeps his wares as clean and sweet and appetizing as they can be. He even tried to peddle one of them to me. But I swear the barbarus himself has never washed in his life. Uiridus, just drop your things here and let
your
brat stow them properly while you come with me to the—”

“By all the thunders of Thor!” Wyrd erupted. “You cannot order us about like Syrians and slaves. Thorn is my apprentice, learning his craft from the fráuja Wyrd—the magister Uiridus, if you prefer. And whatever I am about to learn from the legatus, I intend that Thorn shall learn also. We go together to see Calidius.”

“Heu me miserum! As you will,” said the signifer, flinging up his hands in exasperation. “But let us go forthwith.”

So I tethered my juika-bloth to the bedstead, and Wyrd and I again followed Paccius. This time he led us along the via praetoria, the other main street that ran crosswise to the via principalis, and at the far end of it was the praetorium, the residence of the legatus and his family and retinue. As Paccius strode along ahead of us, I said to Wyrd in an undertone:

“Tell me, fráuja, what are charismatics?”

“Why, those boys we just saw.” He jerked his thumb backward.

“Ja, but why are they called by that name?”

He turned to look at me, with a strange sort of look. “You do not know?”

“How should I know? I never heard the word before.”

“It is from the Greek—khárismata,” he said, still eyeing me askance as we walked. “You
do
know what a eunuch is?”

“I have heard tell. I have not yet encountered one.”

His look at me was frankly perplexed. “The Greek khárisma used to mean a special gift or talent possessed by a person. In modern language, a charismatic is a special sort of eunuch. The most exquisite and expensive sort.”

“But I thought a eunuch was a… well, a nothing, a neuter. How can there be varying degrees of nothingness.”

“A eunuch is a man unmanned by being shorn of his testicles. A charismatic is one shorn of everything down there. Svans and all.”

“Iésus!” I exclaimed. “Why?”

Now averting his gaze, Wyrd said, “There are masters who want them that way. An ordinary eunuch is only a servant who can be trusted not to molest his master’s women. A charismatic is a plaything for the master himself. And those masters prefer them young and winsome. The ones we just saw I would wager are Franks. Making charismatics—of beautiful boys orphaned, bought from their parents, abducted, whatever—is the special trade of the Frankish city of Verodunum, and a thriving trade it is. Of course, because so many of the boys perish during the drastic syrurgery involved, the few who survive fetch an extravagant price indeed. That villainous Syrian is shepherding a fortune on the hoof, so to speak.”

“Iésus,” I said again, and we walked on in silence until Paccius, well ahead of us, beckoned from the entryway of the praetorium for us to make haste. Then Wyrd turned to me once more and said, with what sounded like contrition:

“Forgive me, urchin. When you inquired about the charismatics, I showed surprise because… akh, well, because I took you to
be
one of them.”

“I am nothing of the sort!” I said hotly. “I am not mutiliated in any of my parts!”

He shrugged. “I have asked your forgiveness, and I will ask nothing else—not even to inquire whether you are offspring of the godling Hermaphroditus. I earlier said that I do not care one ferta
what
you may be, and I still do not, and I never will. Let us speak of the subject no more. Now come with me into the praitoriaún and we will find out why the august Calidius seems so overjoyed to have us here.”

Paccius led us through a hall and several rooms, all splendidly furnished and decorated with wall and floor mosaics, couches, tables, draperies, lamps and other objects of which I could not even ascertain the use. I thought the maintenance of such an establishment must require innumerable servants or slaves or military orderlies, but we encountered no other persons at all. Then Paccius ushered us outdoors again, into a colonnaded garden courtyard set in the center of the building. There was of course snow on the ground there, and nothing in bloom, but a man was striding up and down a flagstone terrace—distractedly, it seemed, for he was wringing his hands much as the Syrian slaver had done.